The Beaux' Stratagem

The Beaux' Stratagem is a comedy by George Farquhar, first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London, in March 1707. Archer and Aimwell, two young gentlemen who have fallen on hard times, plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their money and move on. In the first town, Lichfield, they set their sights on Dorinda. Aimwell falls truly in love, and comedy ensues. Foigard, actually an Irish priest called MacShane, is a sombre version of the stage-Irish stereotype.

Characters

*Archer, a beau but plays servant to Aimwell
*Aimwell, another beau
*Count Bellair, a French count
*Boniface, a Landlord
*Cherry, his daughter
*Lady Bountiful, country women, specialises in herbal medicine
*Dorinda, her daughter
*A countrywoman
*Squire Sullen, a country block-head
*Scrub, his servant
*Mrs Sullen, his, unhappy, wife
*Gypsy, her servant
*Foigard, a priest and chaplain to the French officers
*Gibbet, a highwayman
*Hounslow, his associate
*Bagshot, another associate
*Sir Charles Freeman, brother to Mrs. Sullen

ummary

The plot of The Beaux Stratagem is reasonably simple for this sort of comedy. The main male parts are two fashionable beaux, on the lookout for an heiress to marry so they can repair their fortunes. Aimwell and Archer are taking it in turns to be the fashionable gentleman, the other being the gentleman's servant. When they arrive in Lichfield, Aimwell is the gentleman, and his insinuates himself into friendship with the beautiful Dorinda, daughter of Lady Bountiful (the origin of the expression). Meanwhile, Archer strikes up an extremely worldly friendship with Dorinda's sister-in-law. She's married to Sullen, the country squire parody in this play, mad for hunting and eating and (especially) drinking.

While Aimwell and Dorinda continue their inexorable approach to an engagement at the end of the play, in accordance with the rules of the genre - young lovers always marry in the end, to live happily ever after - Farquhar uses Mrs Sullen to criticise this facile outcome. She, originally rich in her own right, is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man she despises, who keeps her from the town-based society she adores, by a legal system which does not allow divorce for incompatibility, and in which divorce would leave her disgraced and in absolute poverty (as her property passed absolutely to her husband when they married). The dark side to the play produced by this theme threatens to overwhelm the rest of it, and Farquhar has to resort to a deus ex machina character and an arbitrary adjustment to English law to get out of the hole he has dug for himself. Noticeably, even when her separation from Sullen seems an accomplished fact, the possibility of marriage never seems to cross either her or Archer's mind.

About the Author

Just as the term 'Elizabethan drama' is frequently extended well into the sixteenth century, so to the term 'Restoration comedy' is not restricted to the historical period implied by the title. George Farquhar is a case in point; of Irish origin (son of an Anglican clergyman of Londonderry, who lived through the siege of that city), his success as a playwright falls firmly in the reigns of William and Mary. Though well after the 1660 restoration, his plays still fall within the stylistic genre of Restoration comedy. By the time he was writing, this genre was on its last legs, and the new fashion, a more mannered style, was soon to replace it. Farquhar is clearly not happy with some of the literary conventions of the time, but his ideas lead more towards low comedy and in a few years would have been considered somewhat immoral. (In particular, he was very cynical about the charms of matrimony - an attitude which plays an important part in The Beaux Stratagem.)

Adaptations

The Beaux' Stratagem was adapted by Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig.

In the summer of 2004, the Estate of Thornton Wilder asked Ken Ludwig to complete a play that Wilder had begun in 1939 and never finished. It was an adaptation of The Beaux’ Stratagem, a classic piece of late Restoration comedy written in 1707 by the British playwright George Farquhar (author of The Recruiting Officer). Wilder had finished about half of it, and Ludwig completed the rest.

The resulting play had its world première production in November 2006 at The Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, D.C., directed by Michael Kahn. The first nonprofessional performance of The Beaux' Stratagem was produced at St. Charles Preparatory School in Columbus, OH under the direction of Mr. R. Douglas Montgomery.

The play, set in 1707 in Lichfield, England, tells the story of two young bucks who, having spent all their money by living too well, leave London and roam from town to town in search of love and fortune. In order to find a wealthy heiress for at least one of them, they pose as master and servant – exchanging roles from one town to the next. In Lichfield, Aimwell is the master and Archer the servant, and there they meet the lovely, wealthy Dorinda and her equally desirable sister-in-law, Mrs. Kate Sullen. They set their caps for these women, but problems abound. Kate is married to a drunken sot who despises her; the innkeeper’s saucy daughter, Cherry, has set her cap for Archer; Dorinda’s mother, Lady Bountiful, mistakenly believes herself to be a great healer of the sick, and she guards her daughter like a dragoness; and a band of brigands plans to rob the house of Lady Bountiful that very night, putting all schemes in jeopardy.

For 8 men and 5 women (with doubling). Various locations.

External links

* [http://www.bibliomania.com/0/6/87/1879/ The Beaux' Stratagem] at Bibliomania.com
*Project Gutenberg's text of " [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21334 The Beaux' Stratagem] ."